Dangers of Holiday Decorating
By: Meredith Hillgartner
Updated: November 23, 2012
At Christmas time, David Pearson has been putting lights on his house for the last 14 years.
"I try to keep the younger guys on top of the roof and I've probably done more supervision here lately than in years past," Pearson said.
While Pearson said he has never had an accident he knows the danger is there.
"We try to do it in the afternoon," Pearson said. "We don't want the roof a little slick from the dew, so nobody's going to fall off the roof."
One thing he always is careful of is climbing the ladder onto the roof.
"My guys are real careful about how they set them up and you don't want to get overbalanced when your using them," Pearson said.
Lawrence Ballinger has been professionally decorating homes for over 25 years.
"Sometimes you might have to pull power from the back of the house to run the roof lights," Ballinger said. "The porch lights are going to run the lights that were going to put in the trees and the shrubs."
One of the most important thins Ballinger said to plan is where to plug in all the lights.
He said if you plug them all in to the same outlet, you can overload the circuit and potentially start a fire.
"Don't overload the circuits," Ballinger said. "If a c9 system, those are 9 watt light bulbs, and you can safely put on at least 200 lights on one circuit."
